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Monday, March 25, 2013

ENCOUNTER ON THE S-BAHN

NONSENSE I SAID - THEY ARE ALREADY WAITING FOR YOU

The train was late. They said is was due to the weather - slush and snow in these past few days. The gloomy sky colored everything grey on the platform, the few people patiently waiting appeared like silent wraiths. A candy bar was stuck in the vending machine and a little boy was furiously punching all the buttons when all of a sudden the gears started turning again - on several items: jackpot!

I turned to look down from the elevated platform onto the empty street below. Normally the arrival of the train would be announced, but this time, it just snuck into the station quietly, and only the faint hiss of the doors opening alerted me to its presence. The car was nearly empty. Some of the passengers barricaded themselves with their shopping bags, some would stare vacantly at a point just a foot in front of their nose, others yet pretending to be busy with their cellphones.

A young lady across the isle was watching something on her i-pad, absentmindedly playing with a ring, twisting it in her fingers, when it suddenly slipped from her grip. With a sparkling trail it rolled across towards me and landed with a soft tinkle under my seat. I retrieved it and handed it to her. As our fingertips touched for a brief moment, the greyness disappeared - I caught a wisp of honey-blond hair, porcelain-blue eyes and a little smile, a silent thank you on her lips. She turned back to her i-pad, brushing the screen lightly with her fingertips - and disappeared. They late afternoon had turned into darkness.

Note: originally published as a note on facebook on February 25th 2013

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THE MYSTIC OTTO RAPP

About Me

Born in 1944 in Felixdorf, Lower Austria, I lived and was educated in Vienna, where later I worked as a clerk in the Transport and Insurance Business. After completing service in the Austrian Air Force, I traveled throughout Europe, eventually settling in Stockholm, Sweden.

As a Painter I was initially self taught, studying in the various Galleries and Museums. In Vienna, I was often ‘hanging out’ at the Akademie der Bildenden Kuenste, where I admired the work of the Wiener Schule des Phantastischen Realismus represented there by the Professors Rudolf Hausner and Arik Brauer. Other members were Ernst Fuchs, Wolfgang Hutter and Anton Lehmden, who had studied together at the Academy under Prof. Albert Paris Gütersloh.

In Stockholm, I found out that I was washing dishes in the very same Restaurant where years earlier another Viennese Artist, Fritz Hundertwasser, the ‘Austrian Gaudi’ as he was later known as, had worked the same job. Encouraged by an art dealer in Gamla Stan, I began to paint more seriously. Busking on the streets of Gamla Stan with a Dutch artist, my very first painting was sold to a passer-by by my artist friend while I stood in the employment office line - this paid for a lavish meal for both of us that day.

Traveling around in 1968, I wound up in Western Canada where eventually I settled in Lethbridge, Alberta. It was in Canada where the majority of my mature work was produced (under the sponsorship of a small Lethbridge Gallery).

Working for the Canadian Pacific Railway, I quit in 1977 to attend the Bachelor of Fine Arts Program at the University of Lethbridge, graduating (with great distinction) in 1982.

In Canada, I participated in many exhibitions, and held several Solo Shows, culminating in the pivotal 1994 showing at The Prairie Art Gallery in Grande Prairie, Alberta, which earned me the moniker The Mystic .

Throughout my years in Canada, I had been the subject of many reviews and newspaper articles as well as local television shows in Calgary and Lethbridge while being active as an Artist, Art Instructor, Curator, Studio Technician, Art Critic and Juror.